What: Sixty years of leadership data show that women executives still face harsher judgment, higher standards, and weaker access to advancement pathways.

Why it is important: This matters because uneven leadership pathways can weaken succession planning, talent retention, and long-term organisational resilience.

The article revisits a Harvard Business Review research series that began in 1965 and has tracked perceptions of women in executive leadership every twenty years. The latest survey, based on responses from 193 senior U.S. executives, shows that attitudes toward women leaders have improved over time, but the experience of advancement has become more divided by gender. Women executives are far more likely than men to believe they are judged more harshly, held to higher standards, and evaluated through systems that are not genuinely meritocratic. The authors describe this as “underground bias”: informal sponsorship, subjective promotion criteria, and unequal access to roles that lead to the top. Women remain more concentrated in staff functions, while operational P&L roles continue to serve as critical pathways to CEO positions. The article argues that organisations already have the tools to address these barriers, including predefined criteria, structured documentation, stronger P&L pipelines, and actionable feedback. The remaining challenge is the willingness to apply them consistently.

IADS Notes: The HBR findings mirror a broader leadership challenge. In October 2025, LEADNetwork reported that women held 39% of senior executive roles in European retail and CPG, but progress remained uneven across functions, reinforcing the article’s point that representation gains do not automatically translate into access to operational leadership. In February 2026, Retail Week noted a record number of new female retail leaders, while still highlighting that only half of retailers had reached the 40% executive target. In January 2026, Reuters showed how Walmart, Amazon, and Target were reassessing DEI initiatives under legal and political pressure, and HR Dive’s April 2026 analysis linked inconsistent DEI commitments to reputational, financial, and talent risks. Together, these sources support the article’s central argument: companies need structured promotion criteria, sponsorship, and measurable inclusion practices to turn visible progress into durable leadership pipelines.

What 60 years of data reveals about how men and women experience leadership